Kyrie Eleison: Latin for "Lord Have Mercy."I’m going to keep this brief because I’m too angry to think rationally about this (I actually took a break from the game and put a moratorium on my in-game tweeting when I returned because I was too likely to say something stupid).Kyrie Irving was amazing. There’s no way around this. He single-handedly dominated Rondo (and others) offensively, and it didn’t look vengeful or angry or determined. He just looked like a superior point guard. He’s not elite defensively, but he’s adequate, and “adequate” is good enough for him to be a superstar.Paul Pierce hit his first two shots and finished 3-15 because of course that’s what happened.Jared Sullinger remains the lone bright spot in a sea of mediocrity. I honestly believe that the people who believe he will be a role player for his entire career are underestimating him.Don’t blame the 3-point shooting tonight. As a team, the C’s shot 7-17, which is good for 41.2% — a very efficient number from 3-point range.Don’t blame the rebounding either…Boston dominated both the offensive and defensive boards.Avery Bradley doesn’t seem anything close to healthy (because he isn’t, but still).After 41 games (half the season, by the way), the defensive rotations are still awful. So we can go ahead and scratch that off the list of things that might be fixed with time.This gets old. In fact, it has gotten old some time ago. It’s not fun to root against the Lakers because they exhibit the same flaws as Boston night in and night out. The only difference is that the Eastern Conference is so weak at the bottom, those flaws might not keep the Celtics out of the playoffs. Do they deserve it? At the moment, hell no.They could certainly turn it around. Heck, they could disappoint us throughout the regular season, then go on a valiant playoff run and we would all deem it a worthwhile season. But with every loss to a bad team, with every game thrown away by lackadaisical play, with every missed defensive rotation, with every offensive possession that ends with a long jumper at the end of the shot clock, with every offensive rebound that leads to an easy basket by the opposing team, it seems more and more likely that this season will be a depressing, unworthy epilogue to the Pierce and Garnett’s careers.And that’s a goddamn shame.Follow Tom on Twitter: @Tom_NBA.

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